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Tuesday, April 24, 2012

4 Star Review: ‘Fifty Shades Trilogy’ by E.L. James @e_l_james

When unworldly student
Ana Steele first encountered the driven, damaged young entrepreneur Christian
Grey, it sparked a sensual affair that changed both their lives irrevocably.
Shocked, intrigued, and ultimately repelled by Christian's singular sexual tastes,
Ana demanded a deeper commitment; determined to keep her, Christian agreed.
Now, together, they have more-love, passion, intimacy, wealth, and a world of
infinite possibilities. But Ana always knew that loving her Fifty Shades would
not be easy and being together poses challenges neither of them ever
anticipated. Ana must somehow learn to share Christian's opulent lifestyle
without sacrificing her own integrity, identity, or independence; Christian
must somehow overcome his compulsion to control and lay to rest the horrors
that blighted his past and haunt his present. Just when it seems that together
their love can conquer any obstacle, tragedy, malice and fate combine to make
Ana's worst nightmares come true.

(Amazon Product Description)

Okay, so if you are living under a rock and unfamiliar with
this trilogy, I’ll give you a little background. Fifty
Shades of Grey started out as
Twilight fan fiction--very naughty
Twilight fan fiction. As the author
developed and revised, the characters became much more than Edward & Bella
and the story became something completely different. The result is that even though there are no
vampires and a heck of a lot more “adult” behavior, the adult fans of Twilight are getting their knickers in a
twist over these books. :)

Okay, history lesson over. The truth is, when I heard that
an indie published, BDSM erotic romance series scored a $5 million movie deal--I
had to see what the fuss was about.

You can see the echo of Edward & Bella in Christian
& Ana, but C&A were much more developed and (for the most part)
realistic. Christian was the more
interesting of the two by far. His psychological
issues were fascinating. He could be ruthless
and controlling one minute and completely vulnerable the next, but it was done
is such a realistic and believable way.
Watching him grow and evolve throughout the three books was a joy.

Ana was stronger and more likable than Bella, but I had a
few issues with her character. First,
she starts off as a 21 year old virgin who is completely innocent and within a
very short time, she is begging to be trussed up and spanked. It was too radical of a shift, too quickly. Secondly, Ana kept talking about her “inner
goddess” and her “subconscious self” like separate personalities inside
her. Not only was in incredibly
annoying, but each time the author mentioned these, it pulled out of the
story.

Another thing that was a little off was the dialog. The author is British, so there was a tendency
for some of the characters to use words or terms that didn’t fit people born
and raised in the U.S. The result was I
kept reading them with British accents in my head.

But even these couple of issues didn’t ruin the story for
me. I really did enjoy reading these
books. There is action, danger, suspense,
lots and lots of sex and a total escape into a fantasy world that we will never
live in. And in the end, isn’t that what
reading is all about?

Overall, I give the Fifty
Shades Trilogy...

Plot - 3 1/2
bookmarks

Character development
- 4 1/2 bookmarks (Absolutely loved Christian. There is a scene in book two where he just
slayed me!)

Love story - 4
bookmarks

Sex scenes - 4
bookmarks (For the most part, they added to the story)

Dream cast (otherwise
known as who I pictured while reading) - I don’t think it’s possible to
read these books without picturing Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart as
Christian and Ana. I just saw the Cosmopolis movie trailer with Rob and
his character is totally Christian. I’d
die a happy woman if they could cast him in the Fifty Shades movies. Actually,
all the characters were sort of echoes of who they were in Twilight, just older and more mature. Anna Kendrick (Kate), Kellan Lutz (Elliot),
Ashley Green (Mia), etc.

1 comment:

I didn't realize this started out as fan fiction, but I could definitely feel the parallel between the stories. Like you, though I liked the characters much better, particularly Christian. BTW Ian Somerholder wants to play Christian. If you ask me he is way better than RP.